180 Gram Vinyl ~ NOW Available!
This luscious double-lp includes the full “proVISIONS” album AND a code to download the album digitally PLUS 6 bonus piano tracks:
1) Spiral (Live from Tucson)
2) Conditioned Air
3) Random Stillness Then Flame and Go
4) Tangulation
5) Alone and Nested Drone
6) Loss and its Hold on Us

recent press

All songs by Kate Maki except Badminton Racquet by Kate Maki and Nathan Lawr
Produced by Howe Gelb with assistance from Kate Maki and Dave Draves
Recorded and mixed by Dave Draves at Little Bullhorn
Mastered by John Golden at Golden Mastering

Canadian alt-folk singer Kate Maki will release her third album “On High” February 12th, 2008 on OW OM in the United States, Confusion Unlimited in Canada, and Saved By Vinyl worldwide. Co-produced by Kate and Tucson, Arizona phenomenon Howe Gelb (Giant Sand), the album was recorded live off the floor by Dave Draves (Julie Doiron) at Little Bullhorn Studios in Ottawa, Ontario over a period of five days in March 2007. There are 11 new songs featuring Howe on piano and electric guitar, Dave on optigan and organ, Dale Murray (Buck 65) on pedal steel and acoustic guitar, and Nathan Lawr (Royal City) on drums and piano. All four musicians also lent their vocals to what are being described as Kate’s strongest songs to date. Previous releases: “The Sun Will Find Us” (2004) and “Confusion Unlimited” (2003)

VIDEOS

BACKWATER BLUES (LIVE 1989)

“these unearthed tapes were recorded in the best studio tucson had to offer at the time and were recently rediscovered and dusted off properly by jim blackwood. and so now, with its scorching tumble, we all get to stumble into celebrating rainer, with this joyous sonic soar that soothes the sorrow of his death 10 years ago. he was my best friend. he was my brother. and he taught without really teaching.”
– howe gelb

OW OM Finished Recorded Products presents Rainer: The Westwood Sessions Volume I. The first of three volumes, we consider these timeless recordings far too precious to be heard by just a lucky handful.

Ten years after his passing, and twenty years after these marathon recording sessions took place, what is captured here is an astounding picture of Rainer in 1987. Self assured, powerful, and brimming with confidence, Rainer is accompanied by his band Das Combo, consisting of bassist Nick Augustine and drummer Bruce Halper. Session producer Eric Westfall also joins in with various instrumental colors.

Presumably, tracks from these sessions were intended as a follow-up to the 1984 album Barefoot Rock with… Rainer And Das Combo, but the tapes were shelved as Rainer moved on in other directions. His next release would not come until 1992 with the purely solo album Worried Spirits.

Taken directly from the original two track master tapes and carefully prepared for their first official release, these recordings are nothing short of stunning.

While there are many highlights to relish here, the closing pieces “Zealots Serve Dogmas” and “I Am A Sinner” (only hinted at on the 1993 album The Texas Tapes) are poised to become the new high water mark of Rainer’s prolific cannon.

1. Train Singer Song
2. World Stand Still
3. The Hangin’ Judge
4. All Done In Again
5. Return To San Pedro
6. Four Door Maverick
7. Explore You
8. Notoriety
9. The Wild Frontier
10. Lonely Man You Are
11. Seldom Matters
12. Down On Town

VIDEOS

WORLD STAND STILL

TRAIN SINGER SONG

hello. i have put off putting out a tour only type cd because i didn’t want to stock it with out-takes or scrapheap supplement. after ‘sno angel, it seemed like a bar was raised, or i just finally got too old for wasting any time, mine or yours. jim blackwood kept coaxing me to come record some acoustic stuff on his new digital device. he is a good man and has worked hard at saving many old recordings through the years that would have just remained in a backyard box, melting there and crusted with a thick desert coating of dust and adobe muck. so i tend to give his requests more then a little merit. he first set up his gear in my home studio, which is just an adobe walled room with a 4 track cassette machine from 1988 i bought a few years ago at a yard sale for 35 bucks. the original price tag was 2000 dollars apparently. but i digress. we didn’t use it at all on this recording. i love the sound of that cassette recorder, but jim was eager to try his new piece of digital yippity.

ok then. thoger lund sat in on upright bass and joe novelli stopped by the house to slip and occasional slide. i used an old 1959 martin 00 E that my wife got me for my 50th birthday. she knew i always wanted a martin, but never gotten around to affording one. this one came with a factory installed d’armond pick up innit. it feels like i always have had it, which might have to do with the notion that we were both made in pennsylvania in the 50s and ended up here in the desert.

for the second session, jim suggested we try going back to where rainer recorded a record 15 years ago; the san pedro chapel. it is also the place we held his memorial 10 years ago just after his death. i had not been back since. being in there again made me dizzy. i could not really think in terms of this world. the walls are also made of adobe, which is a substance i have grown to favor for making any kind of sounds. when i was young, it had always been my plan to eventually settle into an old adobe house one day because of the lack of true right angles, since there are no right angles in nature anyway, and because of the way those rooms sound. but i digress again.

here we were back at san pedro. the air was thick was rainerism. first i picked up my old national duolian and let my heart slide out for him. on that one, thoger just played a sound he came up with on his new old cheap tiny casio sampler thing from a thrift shop. it reminded me how rainer used to loop himself while playing way before there were real loop pedals. that song was the burning of the sonic sage i suppose, then it was back to the martin. we continued with some other songs that were still arriving. i, myself, arrived late as usual, well stuck in tucson time. so in between that moment and having to drive across town to fetch the kids from school, jim captured a few more songs done up by me and thoger. now, thoger is my favorite bass player ever. that boy breathes music. he can’t help it. we locked into some grooves that were impossible to conjure without percussion or drums. but they happened anyway.

some songs were old and desperately wanted a dusting off. other songs happened to just be there waiting for a bus. and some others wanted “in” even though they had not been written yet. i tried to pick the ones with the most ‘event’ in them. i suppose at this age it’s good to hear something just acoustic and drumless. i dunno. it did that day anyway. so. some days it gets very hard to play music. there is a tragedy that gets attached to it all that tends to weigh down the process. other times we bust on through that gravity and thrive on its buoyancy. busting a hole though gravity is always a good idea for as long as it lasts. after those two sessions, jim and i sat down to clean up the tracks and send em over to roger at sae to master up proper. upside down home 2007.

it’s just a hole in the donut of gravity. a desert dessert. thanks to jim, thoger, joe, roger and celia blackwood for putting this thing together. otherwise it would still be not. the end.